At the bottom of the great canyon, the great tomb was like an abyss.
Only one corner of the city gate was exposed, and how grand and vast the full extent of it might be could not yet be determined. Wave after wave of yin soldiers and yin horses kept streaming outward, impossible to cut down completely.
The outstanding disciples of the several holy lands had already gone deep inside. The disciples of the many great sects and other major powers followed close behind — slaying yin soldiers, forcing their way through the gate.
“Thoom — thoom — thoom…”
War drums thundered from deep within the underground palace. The yin soldiers came like a surging black tide, flowing out ceaselessly. Many cultivators perished.
Yet for the sake of the Nine Secrets, no major power could afford to retreat. A massive number of cultivators killed their way inside, each deploying their weapons, waging war against the yin soldiers and yin horses.
Then someone brought out Departure Fire — one single ignition and a great swath was burned, wave after wave of yin spirits reduced to nothing.
“Kill!”
Battle cries rang out everywhere. The fighting was brutal. Corpses lay strewn before the underground palace. The yin soldiers and yin horses were fierce and brave, and many cultivators were trampled to bloody pulp.
By the time a full hour had passed, the battle cries had finally faded. No one knew how many had died. The ground before the city gates was a sheet of deep crimson — flesh and soil mingled together, forming a stretch of mud and gore, bloody water pooling everywhere. It was a harrowing sight.
The entrance to the city gates finally fell quiet. The yin soldiers and yin horses had been sharply reduced — almost none remained visible. They were no longer charging outward. The surviving cultivators, the great majority of them, had fought their way inside.
“Everyone — shall we go in?” A cultivator’s face had drained of all color, his body trembling slightly.
About a hundred people remained before the gates, all with grim expressions. Some of the female cultivators were retching. They hadn’t been strong enough to join the fighting and had watched from a distance throughout. Only now had they drawn near.
“The yin soldiers are mostly gone. It should be safe to enter now.” Another pale-faced cultivator spoke up.
“This ancient burial site is too fearsome. It is not a place we can move through freely. Deep in the underground palace, there will almost certainly be even more powerful yin spirits.” Some dissented.
In the end, only a small number went inside. The majority were sensible enough to remain where they were, evacuating the great canyon and returning to the surface.
Three figures descended from above, arriving before the underground palace and gazing inside.
“Daoist Duan, will you go in?” Ji Ziyue asked.
“Wait a little longer.” Duan De was entirely composed and in no hurry at all.
Ye Fan smiled. “Aren’t you afraid the Nine Secrets will be taken by someone else?”
“Aren’t you unhurried as well? Good things don’t come by rushing. Even if they go in first, that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to get to them.” Duan De was steady as a rock.
“Hmm!”
Suddenly, the underground palace gave a violent shudder, the yin energy inside growing even denser. Many cultivators cried out in alarm, and then the battle cries surged again.
Duan De’s expression shifted. “I knew it couldn’t be that simple. The truly powerful things are only now taking the stage.”
Low rumbling, fierce combat, the underground palace in utter chaos — screams piled one upon another.
“Are you certain this truly is the burial site of that ancient clan? Something feels off to me.” Ye Fan said.
“Something is indeed off. The yin spirits are far too numerous. Things like this require an immensely long span of time to gestate.” Duan De frowned.
Another half-hour passed. The underground palace at last fell considerably quieter. The howling faded. Before long, people came lurching out, barely keeping their footing.
These survivors were disheveled, their faces ashen, having suffered grievous wounds. Many bore horrifying claw marks on their bodies, and some had lost entire arms.
“What happened in there? What did you encounter?” Duan De, looking perfectly honest and earnest, drew close and asked with apparent concern.
“Damn it all, don’t even talk about it. The inside is a ghost den. Malevolent spirits everywhere. The deeper you go, the worse the things you encounter.”
“And who knows which sorry fool discovered this tomb and started digging — dug up an underground spring. Not a scrap of Nine Secrets in there. Just cost me one of my arms.” A large man cursed repeatedly, staggering as he fled.
Duan De rubbed his nose and said nothing more.
Within a quarter of an hour, a great many people had come pouring out of the underground palace. All of them had lost their nerve and wanted nothing more to do with the risk inside.
“All right. It’s our turn to go in now. If we wait any longer, nothing will be left.” Duan De decided to move.
Ye Fan said, “This poor Daoist no longer wishes to go in. This place bodes ill — there is almost certainly no Nine Secrets inside.”
Ji Ziyue also stopped in her tracks. If her brother could not handle whatever was inside, then going in now would be useless to her. She felt it would be better to fetch an elder.
“Very well then. This poor Daoist shall go claim the Nine Secrets alone.” Duan De gave a sway of his figure and was gone through the city gates.
“Little Daoist, you should get as far away from here as possible.” Ji Ziyue thought it over, then flew out of the great canyon and rushed off into the distance.
This place was too treacherous. Even if one tried to fish in troubled waters, there would very likely be nothing to gain. The yin spirits were inexhaustible. Ye Fan decided against reckless action and waited outside.
Then, all at once, a large dog’s silhouette caught his eye. The Dark Emperor bounded down the steep walls of the great canyon like a lone wolf.
Ye Fan had not only changed his appearance — even certain fundamental aspects of his being had shifted, such as his scent. Even this dog spirit had no way to identify him by smell.
“Dark Emperor — over here!”
The big black dog heard the call and flinched, baring its teeth as it looked over.
“It’s me. Don’t make a scene. Communicate by spiritual thought.” Ye Fan had not expected it to appear here. The carefully suppressed restlessness in his heart began stirring again. This creature had broken through the seals of great masters before. Going into the underground palace together with it would likely offer a reasonable chance of success.
The big black dog scowled. “I was just looking for you. I went through all that trouble accompanying you to the Hall of Deathless Aging to rescue someone, and got absolutely nothing out of it. I labored for you for nothing.”
“Has your conscience been eaten by a dog?!”
“What the—!” The big black dog was so furious it nearly lunged.
Ye Fan sent a thought: “Don’t get hot-headed. That old demon was clearly sealed inside your Divine Bell — how could you not have gotten the ancient scripture?”
“That catastrophe and my Divine Bell temporarily merged into one. I can’t refine it away, so I can’t access the ancient scripture at all.” The big black dog was deeply vexed.
Ye Fan smiled. “Easy enough to fix. When Pang Bo eventually comes out, I’ll have him take you on as his mountain-guardian divine beast and pass you the supreme ancient scripture.”
The big black dog’s expression turned hostile. “Little one, do you believe I could shout ‘the Root Source of Ten Thousand Primordial Qi is right here’ and have a mob come and tear you apart?”
“All right, all right. We’re two grasshoppers tied to the same rope — stop squabbling. Let’s go into the underground palace together right now and see what we can fish out.”
“You want me to break through the restriction seals for you, don’t you?” The big black dog looked at him with an expression that said it had seen straight through him.
Ye Fan kept his composure. “I’m taking you inside to let you get a share of the benefits. Most likely there won’t be any seals to break.”
“If you want my help, just say so. Don’t make it sound like you’re doing me a favor.” The big black dog bared its teeth.
“I want to ask you — are you able to carve Dao patterns capable of traversing the void?” Ye Fan studied it intently.
The big black dog spoke with proud authority: “Who am I? Unmatched in all of heaven and earth — there are no Dao patterns I cannot carve. As long as you can provide the materials, I could even send you to the Central Region.”
“Truly? Or are you exaggerating?”
“Naturally it’s true.”
Light flashed in Ye Fan’s eyes, and he urged, “Then let’s not waste any more words. Start carving the patterns right now. Not asking for something that can cross millions of li — just enough to pierce the void for a thousand li. Use it as our escape route for later.”
“To carve something like that, I need special materials. Do you have any Mysterious Jade?” The big black dog asked with a dismissive roll of its eyes.
“I’ve gathered some.” Ye Fan produced a large block of it, several meters long — jet black and lustrous, glimmering with faint crystalline light.
There was another reason he was not going inside yet. The holy lands were determined to have the Nine Secrets. Their Grand Elder-level figures had certainly arrived and were most likely sealing off the area from outside.
Now that the Dark Emperor was here, if it could carve Dao patterns capable of traversing the void, that concern would effectively be neutralized.
A quarter-hour later, Ye Fan and the big black dog entered the underground palace. They did not walk in together — one in front, the other behind, keeping distance between them. The big black dog had also transformed itself into a small, two-chi-long mutt, to avoid being recognized.
This underground world was immense — the far-reaching underground palace extended into a vast connected network, and it was impossible to tell where it led. It resembled not so much a great tomb as an enormous underground fortress from a forgotten age.
Along the way, they passed many corpses. Occasionally a lone yin soldier would burst out to attack, but that was no match for Ye Fan — after all, this was not a charge of thousands.
“Once we’re inside, watch for a fat Daoist — no wait, he changed his appearance. He looks like this now…” Ye Fan sent a spiritual thought to the big black dog.
“You’re saying I should bite him at the critical moment and snatch the treasure?” The big black dog looked at him sideways. “You have the nerve to ask me to do something like this.”
“Honestly, if I could, I’d bite him myself — but my teeth aren’t sharp enough. I can’t compare to you. That scoundrel is sure to find the treasure. You just need to keep an eye on him, and we’ll come away with plenty.”
This ancient tomb was magnificent in scale — like an entire underground palace complex. Stone columns carved with dragons, tomb walls etched with phoenixes — exquisitely crafted throughout, one underground palace leading into the next.
“Myaowww…!” Suddenly, a piercing cat’s cry rang out. A dark light came shooting out of a stone hall, lunging at Ye Fan — swift as a black bolt of lightning.
It was a massive creature, five or six meters in length, with claws more than a foot long. In form it resembled a large black cat, but its body was covered in scales, muscular and powerful, its teeth like daggers gleaming with cold light.
Ye Fan struck out with his fist and shattered the great black cat. Besides dissolving into a dense surge of yin energy, it left behind a pool of dark blood.
A grave expression came over the Dark Emperor’s face. “The yin entity has developed blood — this place is truly ferocious. Most likely it’s been sealed away for one to two hundred centuries.”
As they ventured several li deeper into the underground palace, Ye Fan grew increasingly apprehensive. He spotted a yin soldier standing over ten meters tall — a giant that had developed flesh and blood through yin energy, though half its body had been hewn away, the wound clearly left by a Great Desolation Halberd.
Not long after, he came upon several dozen more yin soldiers with scales covering their bodies. Scattered around them were numerous shattered weapons of the Dao Hall grade.
They appeared to have been incinerated — half their bodies burned away. This was unmistakably the work of the Holy Son Yao Guang’s sacred light technique.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble…!”
Yellow water swelled and surged. A great river cut through the underground palace, rushing onward into the distance — yellow to a degree that made one uneasy, reeking of putrid decay.
Before long, Ye Fan encountered numerous yin soldiers clad in golden robes, their golden armor blazing brilliantly, their complexions full of color — as though they were living. But they had already been cut down.
After that, they passed several enormous mounds of dried bones with great serpents slithering in and out, savage and ferocious. Then came a lake of blood, creatures moving within it — though apparently frightened off by whoever had passed through before them, they did not charge out.
After more than ten li of travel in all, they reached the far end of the underground palace. The scene that greeted them had completely changed.
The yin energy was gone entirely. Just ahead, a bright luminescence filled the air — dazzling and resplendent.
It was a cluster of jade towers and ornate halls, seated at the far end of the underground palace. Utterly pure and sacred. Radiant colored light bloomed outward in streams; brilliant rays shone in all directions.
All around it, lush greenery spread wide — all manner of rare flowers and exotic grasses growing in this underground world.
“Strange. I expected a ghost den, but in the end there is this sacred and radiant palace.” Ye Fan was somewhat taken aback.
The building complex was a golden yellow hue, yet nearly crystalline and transparent — like gold but also like spirit jade, extraordinarily magnificent.
When the big black dog saw this, it gave a violent start. “Damn, am I seeing things? With power this sacred and pure — could it be that someone is trying to achieve Emperor status through a corpse?!”
“Ji Haoyue, the Golden-Winged Xiaopeng King, the Divine Physique of the Jiang Family, and the people of the holy lands have all gone inside. I wonder what they will find.” Light shone in Ye Fan’s eyes.